4 Weeks!

This week we were able to watch a video of Devon singing with the other missionaries in the Madrid MTC on YouTube. He didn't tell us about it, we found it in a very round about way but you can watch it here. He is on the top row on the left side and he is wearing his glasses (1:56). The camera pans by him twice - the second time you can see him smiling and talking to his neighbor (2:13). It was so great to catch a glimpse of him looking good! Some of those missionaries must have worked really hard to be able to sing that song in English! In his letter he mentions something about a blog as well so I will do a little digging and see if I can find that! In this e-mail he says a lot of stuff about Spanish- maybe it will make sense to some of you! :)

Hola Everyone!

I just want to start by saying thank you to everyone who emailed me this week. I loved all of the letters! :) Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Ridd for your letter - there is a kid here from Mountain View but he didn't know the kid that you were talking about but I definitely appreciated your letter! Thank you Sister Erekson for your letter too! It was very nice to hear from your family. Glad to hear that everyone is doing great back home! With Courtney's wisdom teeth, Alora's white trash party and Dad's birthday it sounds like you all had a busy week.

Ok, lots of stuff happened here this week too! We had a President's devotional on Sunday in the stake center right next to the CCM (MTC in Spanish?) and the temple. After the devotional 4 or 5 of us Elders were talking to President and Sister Sitterud. We were talking and Sister Sitterud start walking away to go somewhere and she tripped and fell and shattered her shoulder. There were just a couple of us Elders there and we all ran over there freaking out and seeing if we could do anything to help. We ended up giving her a blessing and it was so awesome to be able to participate in that. She went to the ER and got fixed up and now she is doing fine. I feel so much closer the President and his wife now, that's for sure.


I am the District Leader here again. I love it. My district is awesome. I have memorized the first vision, the Purpose of Missionaries from Preach my Gospel, the 4th section of the Doctrine and Covenants and Moroni 10:3-5 so far all in Spanish. There are some Elders here who have like 50 scriptures memorized in Spanish, it's crazy. Speaking of Spanish - let me clear up some myths about the Spanish in Spain for you guys... The theta is only used on C's that sound like S's and Z's. So it's not Ethpaña it's España. You can totally tell the different dialects from the different parts of Spain. In the south part of Spain like in Malaga and the Canary Islands, they don't really say S's at all and they don't finish the end of their words - it's crazy. So they would pretty much say, La Igleis de JesuCrito do lo Santo de lo Ultiom Dia - but super fast. In the North, they pronounce everything really well but their jota's or their J sounds that would be like an H sound in Mexico are super Frenchy here. It's like they have a loogie in their throat when they say Jesucristo. But other than that, it's the same Spanish here as anywhere else! It's not hard to understand the vosotros or anything, so it's wonderful. And don't worry, I won't come home sounding like a gay guy like everyone said - the theta is more manly than you think!

I am in the hotel once again because we got some more native missionaries! So I had to pack up all of my stuff for like the 5th time already on my mission... but it's all good! I know they keep picking on me because I am willing to move around! I love it here! I am so grateful for every one's prayers and wishes on my behalf. I love you all! The Church is true!!